New Lake Forest program brings sailing to those with disabilities

Kim Russell and her mother, Lisa, take an adaptive sailing lesson in Lake Forest. Kim's Spina bifida has not kept her off the water. Judd Goldman Adaptive Sailing Program has helped get started the adaptive sailing class for disabled people.

Kim Russell and her mother, Lisa, take an adaptive sailing lesson in Lake Forest. Kim's Spina bifida has not kept her off the water. Judd Goldman Adaptive Sailing Program has helped get started the adaptive sailing class for disabled people.

The sky is overcast as Kim Russell, 30, of Evanston, pulls up to the Lake Forest Yacht Club.

The driveway is still wet from a morning rain and the wind gently blows waves to shore. The air is thick but not too warm.

It's a perfect day for sailing.

Russell won't be sailing alone – she can't, since she has spina bifida and has been wheelchair-bound since childhood – but her physical disability isn't going to keep her on land.

Instead, she headed out that cloudy afternoon for her second lesson, an offering that's part of the Judd Goldman Adaptive Sailing Program.

The Chicago-based program has been operating since 1990 with the mission of teaching those with physical disabilities to sail.

Peter Goldman, CEO and program founder, said the nonprofit has 20 specially designed Paralympic boats used to teach everyone from amputees to paraplegics how to sail.

"About 99 percent of our students have never sailed a boat in their lives," Goldman said. "Because of their disability, they get involved in our program. If they hadn't been disabled, they might have never sailed."

The boats have been installed with special chairs that can swing to both sides, allowing someone without use of their legs to steer the tiller, pull rope and do everything an able-bodied sailor can do.

Goldman founded the program in honor of his father, Judd Goldman, who died in 1989.

Goldman said his father suffered from a bone disease that left him wheelchair-bound as a teenager, but he was able to lead a normal life despite having chronic hip and back issues.

He said his father even learned how to sail, a pastime that became a passion for both dad and son.

The duo discussed starting a program to help others with physical disabilities learn how to sail, but the elder Goldman died before the plan came to fruition.

The sailing school has operated for more than 20 years out of Chicago's Burnham Harbor.

"I never thought it would be this big," Goldman said, adding that 1,000 people go through the Chicago program every year. "It's a wonderful feeling to know there are so many people that have been affected over the years here, and we've been able to provide something that I think is a big need."

The success of the downtown program had Peter Goldman considering expansion elsewhere.

When Hunter Ratliff, a longtime employee of the program, became director of marine operations at the Lake Forest harbor in 2005, the North Shore location seemed like an obvious fit.

The two set out to bring the world of adaptive sailing to the North Shore.

"That's what's really great about this program," Ratliff said. "We can teach the same things we teach on any other platform to any other person here. They come away learning how to sail."

Ratliff said that in its first summer in Lake Forest, the program has attracted a handful of sailors.

He and Goldman hope that once the program gets more established, more people from the northern suburbs will participate and benefit from it.

On board during her lesson, Russell guided the tiller as her instructor, Nicholas Van Antwerp, 21, grilled her on sailing terminology.

Lisa Russell, Kim's mom, came along for the ride, and was also quizzed on terms like "tacking," "jibing" and "sheets."

Van Antwerp, whom Ratliff calls his "right-hand man," he is one of three instructors trained specifically for the program.